Characters

It's 1961, and Alfred Hitchcock is trying to persuade his former leading lady Grace Kelly, now Princess Grace of Monaco (Nicole Kidman), to star in his next project, Marnie. Both Hitch and Grace are bossed around by Madge (Parker Posey), a lady-in-waiting with pointy specs, pointy elbows and pursed lips who always wears head-to-toe black, even in the blazing Mediterranean sunshine. She appears to be a parody of the great Mrs Danvers in one of the real Hitchcock's own masterpieces, Rebecca.

Accents

Full of Grace … Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly in the forthcoming biopic Grace of Monaco

Meanwhile, Grace and her limp husband Rainier (Tim Roth) are at a bleak party on a yacht with billionaire vulgarian Aristotle Onassis (Robert Lindsay). There is a grumpy French politician moaning about the war in Algeria. "Oh, but colonialism is so last century," trills Grace. Kidman aims for the real Kelly's creamy ingénue tone throughout, yet somehow ends up sounding like Derek Zoolander.

Politics

Rainier faces a challenge to his rather diminutive power: Charles de Gaulle. The French president intends to blockade Monaco to force it to pay French taxes. There was such a crisis in 1962, but, in order to create sympathy for Grace and Rainier, the film needs you to see it as a proud Monegasque struggle for freedom and democracy. The problem is, what it was really about was the presumed right of the super-rich to sequester their obscene wealth in a ridiculous Ruritanian principality. At a guess, it may be tricky to drum up much sympathy for this from Guardian readers. Or indeed from anyone in the 99%, some of whom the producers are presumably hoping will shell out to see their silly movie. "The future is business for the sake of business," simpers Rainier. What a slogan! To the barricades!

Chronology

Several daft subplots rub up disconsolately against each other, mostly having been fictionalised or transplanted from another point in history. For example, it is true that Rainier's sister Antoinette tried to take the throne from him – but that was in 1950, not 1962. In a last-ditch attempt to knit some of its fraying strands together, the film suggests that General de Gaulle is attempting to conquer Monaco because Grace wants to be in a Hitchcock film. Nope. Finally, Grace figures out how to end the war (there wasn't a war) – throw a party!

More balls

Rising to her feet, Grace makes the kind of horror speech you might make if you were incredibly nervous and drank all your champagne, then all everyone else's champagne, then staggered up on stage and insisted on talking despite all your friends trying to drag you off. "I believe in fairytales," she burbles. "I believe they can come true. I believe the world will not always be full of hatred and conflict if we are prepared to sacrifice enough." Anything short of paying taxes, obviously. "That's what Monaco means to me." She is crying now, from self-pity. It is awful. "I don't think anyone should have the right to crush happiness or beauty," she bleats on. "It's not how I was raised." There is rapturous, inexplicable applause. McNamara leans over to President de Gaulle. "You're not really gonna drop a bomb on Princess Grace, are you, Charles?" he says. No, of course he's not. Given the chance, though, the audience might.

Romance

Nicole Kidman in Grace of Monaco. Photograph: AP

"I love you," whispers Rainier to Grace as she sits down. Presumably, this is supposed to signify a happy ending. In fact, the marriage was not a success. Grace and Rainier continued to spend a great deal of time apart, and she eventually moved alone into an apartment in Paris. In later life, she told friends she no longer dreamed of being a princess: instead, she fantasised about becoming a bag lady. Now, that might be a fairytale worth telling.